The CIA’s “Deep State”, Donald Trump and His “War on Terrorism”

Donald Trump’s first act as president was a visit to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, where he addressed gathering of CIA employees. His journey directly in “the swamp” took place almost immediately after his inauguration, and was clearly an urgent first priority.

Serenading Langley

The CIA is a headquarters of the Deep State and the Shadow Government. It is the nexus of criminality, and of the Bushes and Clintons, and the world-managing elite. The CIA enjoys a virtually unlimited black budget and virtually unlimited power that is beyond the reach of law, and beyond the control of the White House.

Yet here was Trump ingratiating and sweet talking the agency that, under order of John Brennan (on behalf of Hillary Clinton and the Bushes), actively engaged in unprecedented efforts to destroy him.

Trump swooned, in sickly sweet fawning fashion:

Nobody feels stronger about the CIA and the intelligence community than Donald Trump. Nobody.I am so behind you. You’re going to get so much backing, you’re going to ask ‘Please Mr. President, don’t give us so much backing’. We’re gonna do great things. We have not used the real abilities we have, we’ve been restrained. We have to get rid of ISIS. Radical Islamic terrorism has to be eradicated off the face of the earth. It is evil. This is a level of evil that we haven’t seen. You’re going to do a phenomenal job, but you’re going to end it. This is going to be one of the most important groups towards making us safe, toward making us winners again, toward ending all of the problems, the havoc and fear that this sick group of people has caused. I am with you a thousand percent! I love you, I respect you, and you will be leading the charge.”

Is Trump naïve, uninformed, or playing some Orwellian game?

How many people attending his speech, the people he expects to “lead the charge” are, in fact, key managers of Islamic terror assets—the very creators and managers of ISIS?

The CIA is, in fact, the very “sick group of people” responsible for orchestrating international terrorism and untold atrocities. How does Trump plan on the CIA “ending” Islamic terrorism when it is the institution he “loves and respects” is the institution that foments and continues to spread this “fear and havoc?

Does Trump know that the CIA is, in addition to being the world’s leading manager of terrorism, also the propaganda ministry of the United States? Does Trump realize that the CIA controls the corporate mainstream media organs that relentlessly and savagely attack him around the clock, and that many of the individuals that he is glad-handing may well be the very same individuals who are orchestrating the vicious propaganda and ongoing coup attempts directed at him and his presidency?

Was Trump’s fawning speech an admission of surrender, and that he will change nothing except the top leadership (switching out Brennan for Mike Pompeo), because he believes nothing needs to be changed?

What did he mean when he said that the CIA had been “restrained”? In what way is the CIA, which is more powerful and more aggressive today than at any other time in its unsavory history, “restrained”? The magnitude of terrorism, violence, criminality and war has reached unprecedented levels, to the brink of world war. Will the CIA therefore be allowed, under Pompeo and Trump, to continue engaging in even more terrorism, false flag operations, regime destabilizations and coups, assassinations, narcotrafficking, financial fraud, corruption, media control and disinformation, and treason — on an even greater “unrestrained” scale?

Trump openly supports enhanced interrogation and torture, which means he supports methods perfected and utilized by the CIA. To head off political pressure, Trump says he will allow Defense Secretary Mattis, who is against torture, to “overrule” him, and allow Mattis to decide on a case by case basis whether to torture prisoners. Is Trump’s unapologetic enthusiasm for torture an example of what he expects to be among the “unrestrained” abilities and “great things” he wants the CIA to display?

As written by former CIA veteran Victor Marchetti in the classic expose, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, the CIA does not “function primarily as a central clearinghouse and producer of national intelligence for the government”. Its basic mission is “that of clandestine operations, particularly covert action—the secret intervention in the internal affairs of other nations. Nor was the Director of CIA a dominant—or much interested—figure in the direction and management of the intelligence community which he supposedly headed. Rather, his chief concern, like that of most of his predecessors and the agency’s current Director—was in overseeing the CIA’s clandestine activities”.

There is also the management of entrenched CIA businesses, which include looted and laundered trillions in secret bank accounts and shell companies, and the management of a vast network of CIA political assets throughout Washington and in the corporate world. What, if anything, does Trump intend to do, for instance, about the massive CIA enterprise that remains in the control of the Bush/Clinton network, which is bitterly opposed to Trump?

While there may be CIA operatives and employees, including current and former veterans who do not support the criminal operations of the agency, these rank and file operatives have not dictated CIA policy since its creation. These “good guys” are the minority, and their reform and whistleblowing efforts have largely been in vain, and met with deadly force.

Is there any sign that that Trump and Pompeo seek to reform the CIA at all, into an institution that answers to its own government? Or do Trump and Pompeo merely seek to somehow co-opt this above-the-law apparatus, retaining its worst elements, towards their own designs (whatever they may be)?

Trump’s “war on terrorism”: waging war with itself?

Trump promises a total war against Islamic terrorism and ISIS.

How does Trump wage a total war against Islamic terrorism when the agency of which he is “the biggest fan”, that he “supports one thousand percent”, is responsible for the creation and ongoing use of Islamic terrorism, as military-intelligence assets for Anglo-American geopolicy? Does Trump realize that the CIA is funding and arming ISIS, Al-Nusra and Al-Qaeda?

Does Trump understand that the CIA is responsible for decades of false flag terror operations, including 9/11? (On 9/11, Trump seems to believe a variation of the consensus official narrative blaming outside Islamic terrorists, possibly the Saudis, and George W. Bush for failing to kill Osama bin Laden. Therefore, the CIA is blameless. He holds this view, despite firsthand experience that goes against the official story.)

Does Trump’s total “war on terrorism” include waging war against the vast network of CIA assets that are currently engaged in destabilization operations across the Middle East? What is his plan for the Free Syrian Army (FSA), Al-Nusra—all of which are CIA fronts?

How can the existing networks remain in place without disaster? Will Trump pit officially sanctioned US military forces against the CIA proxies that have been working on orders from the Obama administration?

Will Trump shut down ongoing military and intelligence operations throughout the region? How will he cut off the funding of terrorists (sources which include Washington and the CIA, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel)? What will be done with the hundreds of proprietary cells and CIA-aligned foreign intelligence networks?

Many have compared Trump’s professed anti-establishment goals to President John F. Kennedy’s fatal efforts to take down the Deep State and the CIA. More specifically, if Trump dares dismantle the CIA and the imperial foreign policy that has been in place since the end of the Cold War, he would place himself in the same dangerous position as JFK faced during the Bay of Pigs operation against Cuba. JFK paid with his life for ruining the CIA’s game. Imagine the repercussions for Trump, if he ends the conquest of the Middle East and Central Asia.

The incompetence excuse

It is difficult to predict Trump’s plan based on his rhetoric, which has been consistently inconsistent. According to his web site, Trump’s primary issue with the Bush/Cheney/Obama/Clinton/Biden (McCain) Middle East program is that he believes that his predecessors recklessly squandered opportunities and unwittingly or stupidly allowed ISIS to happen. It was correct, in Trump’s view, to go into Afghanistan to avenge 9/11 (which he believes was an act of an outside enemy, not a false flag operation), but wrong to go into Iraq. But, according to Trump, once in Iraq, the US should have taken the oil, prevented the oil from going to ISIS, and done a better job preventing the rise of ISIS.

Similarly, Trump seems to believe that (1) Libya was needlessly destroyed by Clinton and Obama, and that Gadhafi could have been removed more surgically, without letting terrorists run wild, and (2) Syria could have been toppled surgically by Obama, who “lacked the courage” to go in. Here also, Trump’s narrative is that mistakes allowed ISIS to spread. Now, however, Syria is too much of a mess and must be cleaned up differently.

The overarching problem, in Trump’s limited view, again is that “mistakes” created power vacuums from which ISIS, unwittingly set loose by Obama/Clinton’s incompetence.

Nowhere in this Trump narrative is there mention of the CIA’s creation and ongoing management of Islamic terrorism—including Al-Qaeda and all fronts of the Islamic State—on behalf of Anglo-American interests around the world. No inkling that Islamic terrorism is, in fact, the key component of American geostrategy..

If Trump grasps any aspect of these amply documented facts, he has so far shown no signs of it. It is not known if he is naïve, uninformed, selectively biased, or if he has been deluded or manipulated by the many “advisers” that he trusts. Or if he has some plan that has yet to be revealed.

The disinformation ministry to stop itself?

Trump promises to wage war against radical Islam on an ideological and cultural basis. This suggests that Trump and Pompeo wish to counter Muslim extremism with counter-propaganda.

This ignores that fact that the CIA itself is a leading disseminator of radical Islamic thought. The CIA, and its international proxies, is behind extremist rhetoric and propaganda, including material broadcasted over the media and the Internet. Trump does not seem to grasp that radical Islam is a symptom, and not a cause. And it is merely a tool, and a weapon used to carry out the geopolitical agenda of the (amoral and non-religious) world elite.

The real enemy is not religion, but those who manipulate and distort religion for war purposes. The real enemy therefore is again the CIA itself, and its propaganda.

Just as it is foolish to allow the CIA to continue arming, funding and guiding ISIS terrorists in the field while also “fighting” them, it is foolish to have the CIA create anti-extremist propaganda while Langley is still guiding the extremist rhetoric being utilized by the terrorists.

If Trump fails to stop the CIA itself and its entire “war on terrorism”, including its propaganda, he stops nothing.

Trump’s resource warriors

The “war on terrorism” and the conquest of the Grand Chessboard is, in essence, a resource war that has been waged over geography involving oil and gas supplies, and oil and gas distribution routes: pipelines, sea transport, etc. Will Trump continue this, and how?

Trump’s selection of Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State is telling as well as ominous. Tillerson’s ExxonMobil has been a major beneficiary of the “war on terrorism”, and a major player in energy deals connected to 9/11 and all subsequent conflict.

Tillerson was executive vice president of ExxonMobil Development Company, and oversaw many of the company’s Caspian Sea holdings.

ExxonMobil was one of the members of Dick Cheney’s secret task force, the US National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG). As detailed extensively in Mike Ruppert’s Crossing the Rubicon, the NEPDG’s targeting of Middle East and Central Asian energy fields served as a virtual map of battle for the “war on terrorism” and a central motive behind 9/11.

In addition, according to Ruppert, who detailed the case in “The Elephant in the Living Room” (From the Wilderness 3/30 02), ExxonMobil engaged in bribery. Major bribes totaling $1 billion were paid by ExxonMobil and BP Amoco to Kazakhstan’s then-president Nutsulstan Nazarbayev to secure equity rights in Kazakh oil fields during the 1990s. Dick Cheney, then-CEO of Halliburton was a sitting member of the Kazakh state oil advisory board. The activities of Cheney’s NEPDG as well as the numerous bribery scandals, have been aggressively covered up.

Tillerson must certainly know about all of this. Does Trump? Is this the kind of foreign policy agenda he and his national security team embraces? If so, it is pure globalism of the most rapacious kind.

More questions

Trump wants better relations with Russia. Cooperation between Trump and Putin has temporarily headed off imminent superpower conflict towards World War 3 over Syria. This conflict would have exploded in earnest if Hillary Clinton had won the presidency.

But what do better relations with Russia mean in terms of the geostrategy, and energy? Recall that Russia has been intimately involved with its own vast energy agenda throughout Central Asia and the Middle East. Russia was reluctantly cooperative with the Bush/Cheney administration throughout the Afghanistan and Iraq conquests. Deals were made. Russia could have, but did not, militarily oppose Bush/Cheney.

Is Trump going to revert to something similar, in which he and Tillerson (who has longstanding ties to the heads of state of all nations, including Russia) cut Russia in on deals—-a cooperative superpower “management” of Syria and the rest of the Grand Chessboard?

What are Trump’s plans for Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, etc.?

How will Trump balance the competing interests of Russia and Israel? How will Trump and Pompeo deal with the Mossad? Israel and Netanyahu have belligerently demanded regime change in both Syria and Iran, and continue to engage in provocative actions to force reactions out of the Syrian and Iranian governments. Trump is staunchly pro-Israel. Given that stance, and his lack of opposition to the Israeli lobby, what are the chances that he will push a policy in Syria that goes directly against the demands of Tel Aviv?

But what are Trump’s views on China’s numerous cooperative deals with Russia throughout the world, including the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa, etc.? How will Trump balance warmer relations with Moscow while adopting a more belligerent policy towards Beijing.

A lone voice of reason

Shortly after his election win, Trump met with Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii). Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran, is firmly and boldly against the regime change in Syria. She is a staunch and open critic of the CIA’s direct and indirect arming and funding of all Islamic terrorists and against support of countries that support terrorists. She calls the Syrian conflict an illegal war that must stop.

On January 4, 2017, Gabbard introduced HR 258, the Stop Funding Terrorists Bill, which would “prohibit the use of American government funds to provide assistance to Al-Qaeda, Jabhat, Fatah al-Sham, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and to countries supporting these organizations, and for other purposes”. This bill aims squarely, boldly, at the CIA.

More recently,Gabbard visited Syria and met with Assad. She has been willing to accept political flak from all sides to change the course of US policy. She has also met with the families of veterans and other American citizens affected by the Syrian conflict.

According to Gabbard,

my visit to Syria has made it abundantly clear: Our counterproductive regime change war does not serve America’s interest, and it certainly isn’t in the interest of the Syrian people. As I visited with people from across the country, and heard heartbreaking stories of how this war has devastated their lives, I was asked, ‘Why is the United States and its allies helping Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups try to take over Syria? Syria did not attack the United States. Al-Qaeda did.’ I had no answer.”

Having met with Gabbard, who may have been considered for a cabinet position at some point, Trump has no excuse: he has been advised by someone with an authoritative point of view that is deeply critical of the CIA and its use of terror proxies.

Does Trump agree or disagree with Gabbard?

To drain or not to drain the CIA swamp

Nothing in his rhetoric suggests that he is against the “war on terrorism”. In fact, he is gung-ho for it, with relish. He simply has his own opinion on how it should be carried out.

It seems highly unlikely that Trump can or will reverse the central geostrategic agenda that has been the cornerstone of imperial policy since the 1970s.

Nor does it seem likely that Trump can or will eradicate the criminal element from the national security apparatus that has stopped all challenges to its primacy since the end of World War II. Langley has not been successfully cleaned up or reformed since its inception. If his fawning words are to be taken at face value, Trump is in love with the CIA, and wants the CIA to love him. At the very least, he is going overboard to win them over.

Former CIA operative Robert Steele believes that Trump has already been penetrated by the CIA, and names White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus as a mole. Trump, however, has shown nothing but ardor for Priebus, “his superstar”, since the election. Priebus is not the only figure behind Trump who demands scrutiny. The entire Trump administration is crawling with neocons and “former” neocons. How many of them have ties to Langley? Trump is surrounded by enemies, within his administration as well as outside. He must protect himself from all of these individuals, if he is even bothering to identify them.

But because Trump appears unlikely, unwilling, or unable to eradicate the true root of “terrorism”—the CIA itself and all military-intelligence agencies that utilize and control terrorists—the world faces a future of continued zero-sum/endless “anti-terrorism”, as the CIA continues sending terrorists to commit violence and murder, at the same time that the commander-in-chief continues to sends the CIA out to go after them, in a surreal and idiotic waste of resources and lives.

Nothing is clear except this:

If Trump does not drain the swamp that is the CIA, he will not end Islamic terrorism, nor dismantle globalism. He will fail to make America great.

If he does not end the “war on terrorism” entirely, humanity itself remains in grave peril.

The gist of these articles is that the so-called ‘travel ban’ and the ensuing brou-ha-ha was just a bit of theater to distract Trump’s enemies from his apparent attempt to take over the NSC by putting his own men (Flynn and Bannon) on the council. If true–and it’s just a hypothesis at this point–we may have to consider the idea that Trump is smarter than he looks.

I’m normally a fan of Global Research, but this article is fatuous–filled with hidden assumptions and even a few false statements. I apologize in advance for the TL;DR, but how else to address all the non-sense in this piece?

“What, if anything, does Trump intend to do, for instance, about the massive CIA enterprise that remains in the control of the Bush/Clinton network, which is bitterly opposed to Trump? … If Trump grasps any aspect of these amply documented facts, he has so far shown no signs of it. It is not known if he is naïve, uninformed, selectively biased, or if he has been deluded or manipulated by the many “advisers” that he trusts. Or if he has some plan that has yet to be revealed.”

Well, if Trump’s halfway intelligent, he certainly isn’t going to announce his plans to his enemies in advance! Pending further, more conclusive evidence, I’d take his little pep-talk at Langley with a grain of salt.

“Is there any sign that that Trump and Pompeo seek to reform the CIA at all, into an institution that answers to its own government? Or do Trump and Pompeo merely seek to somehow co-opt this above-the-law apparatus, retaining its worst elements, towards their own designs (whatever they may be)?”

Uh … what’s the difference? If the elected government gets the CIA to start obeying the president’s orders rather than the other way around, then that is the very definition of ‘co-optation’.

“Trump’s selection of Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State is telling as well as ominous. Tillerson’s ExxonMobil has been a major beneficiary of the “war on terrorism”, and a major player in energy deals connected to 9/11 and all subsequent conflict.”

Big Oil may well have been in favor of the “war on terrorism” at the start, but over the years since, they’ve not really benefited from it much at all. In fact, since the Russians intervened in Syria and the Saudis started an oil-price war on them, Big Oil’s profitability and fracking operations have been devastated. Even inside Iraq, which we supposedly ‘won’, the only new oil concessions they gained were in the rather small Barzani-controlled part of Kurdistan; the Bagdhad government pointedly awarded almost all their new contracts to non-western companies, such as CNOOC (China) and Lukoil (Russia). So unlike Big Finance, which got a bailout under Obama, Big Oil has been the biggest loser of the last several years. It is therefore scarcely a wonder that they might be interested in some kind of course-correction. The question is: exactly what sort of a correction do they have in mind?

“Russia could have, but did not, militarily oppose Bush/Cheney.”

Totally false. The only thing Russia could have done about Iraq or Afghanistan was start a nuclear war with the US. Syria was different precisely because the US did not invade it directly.

“Nothing in his rhetoric suggests that he is against the ‘war on terrorism’.”

Well, that’s true as far as it goes. But it begs the question of what Trump actually thinks GWOT is really all about. I’m opposed to ISIS too–isn’t everybody here? There’s no way for us on the outside to know what exactly is running through Trump’s mind; we’ll just have to wait and see.

I’m not sure people fully appreciate just how big and how many people work for the US ‘intellligence community.’ One is talking about hundreds of thousands of people; not robots. Anyone who has ever worked for a large organization knows that factional disputes are everywhere and often extremely brutal and bitter ones. This is true inside the US Military too, where the contempt felt by many serving officers for the leadership, which has become so highly politicized, is legendary. The CIA isn’t any different. The big split is between the ‘analysts’ and the ‘field.’ Between the ‘thinkers’ and the ‘doers.’ It’s well known that the CIA was opposed to attacking Iraq precisely because they feared it would unleash a tsunami of instability across the entire region that could fundamentally undermine US interests. Cheney had to go to Langley and twist arms and heads to force them to produce the ‘evidence’ he needed to justify the invasion of Iraq. The angency isn’t a monolith at all. Trump is, I believe, attempting to support the ‘realists’ at the CIA, people he’ll need in his battle with the neocons.

“The CIA is set up like a military organization with a sacred chain of command. Somebody tells you what to do and you salute and do it.”
Doug Valentine has studied the CIA for 30 years, interviewed former Directors like Bill Colby and hundreds of operatives – initially they thought he was a like mind and were completely open with him – until they read “The Pheonix Program.” Then they got it banned and opened a ‘subversives’ file on him.
He paints quite a different picture than you. My reading of Valentine is that you simply do not get on, much the less get inducted into the upper echelons of the Agency, unless you are completely onboard with the program. That is the CIA’s own program, and not the national or political one.
So maybe not a monolith – but definitely not a debating society or a radical exchange of ideals either.

But the American military isn’t set up like that with a sacred chain of command that one follows like a robot withou question, and the CIA is even less like that. In fact it’s becoming increasingly less like that as the problems associated with imperial overstretch become harder to conceal and accept.

@michaelk: no offence, but you seem to know a lot about the CIA – more than Doug Valentine?
That said, I’m not fully invested in believing something of which I have no first hand knowledge. If I have created a false paradigm from reading Valentine et al, I’m prepared to modify it – but you’ll need to give me something more authoritative and concrete than your opinion, I’m afraid.
In the meantime, what you say about a “split” doesn’t chime with what I think I know – that the ‘analysts’ simply do not know the half of what goes on in the ‘field.’ Even if they did, there is little they could do (‘cos we all know how America loves a whistleblower )
To avoid compromise, the CIA is necessarily organized on a highly hierarchical, compartmentalized and ‘need to know’ basis. Secrecy is maintained not only from the bottom up, but also from the top down (a Top secret clearance doesn’t allow you access to every piece of available information.) Involvement in the inner workings of the Agency (the ‘Deep Black Programs’) is restricted by the Special Access Programs (SAPs and Unacknowledged SAPs – of which there are hundreds) to which you are briefed ‘on’ and debriefed ‘off.’ Compromise of a SAP would mean life imprisonment, if not worse (unless your name is Hillary!)
I like the idea of social responsibility and a Hegelian dialectic approach creeping into to the Agency – but when I lay it over the map of how I think the Agency works – it doesn’t fit – you can’t discuss what you don’t know – much less dissent against it. So how am I to believe that the structure of the Agency is going to break down and become more socially inclusive?
Many (if not all?) of the Agency’s key programs are ‘off the books’ and unrecorded. It is plausible that if Pompeo gets briefed ‘on’ as Director, many of the most sensitive USAPs won’t immediately be made known to him – unless he ‘needs to know.’ If he doesn’t know, how can he brief the DNI? Or the NSC? What will Bannon (a civilian) be told? Or even Flynn? And Trump?
There is no Congressional, Executive or Judicial oversight. They are simply not informed.
These people are ‘off the ranch;’ in every country on the globe; disseminating ‘black propaganda’ via their tame media; subverting Governments; plotting coups; trafficking drugs and arms; laundering ghost money through their own banks (BIS, BCCI before it was shut down, Vatican); assassinating and torturing; and no one person knows exactly what they do – let alone assumes responsibility. And that is how they do it (plausible deniability.)
If you look at how this appears ‘in the field’ – the same key individuals keep reappearing. The best example would be North’s ‘Secret Team’ – they trafficked arms for drugs on three continents for thirty odd years. A core group of half a dozen – between whom (and throughout their subordinates) there had to be unwavering loyalty (a la Valentine’s quote) – their lives depended on it.
Now (if you heed Valentine) they are going to apply their ‘skill-set’ to the one country they have largely ignored – America
A key tenet of Larry Chins analysis is that this is what Trump refers to as “restrained.” WTF does “unrestrained” mean – socially engineering an alt-right “white ethno-state” via a resurrected Pheonix (program) 2.0 – or engineering global tension into a Radical Islamic Jihad v Judeo-Christian Holy War, FFS?!!!

Trump’s speech concerning ISIS makes perfect sense. Where better to give the CIA a message than in CIA HQ? Trump is stating that he will send the US military after ISIS and is giving the CIA a warning that they should cut their losses on ISIS and dis-invest now. I would expect Trump to be familiar with anything revealed by the wikileaked e-mails.

Is Trump aware that he is assassination material or is his ego so huge that he considers himself untouchable? Very difficult to know. If he does, what is better than to show no fear by entering the lions’ den? The removal of Brennan and Trump’s assertive speech could indicate that there are more changes to come with those unsuspected of disloyalty to the President possibly in line for rapid promotion. (The influence of career and pensions is often underestimated in analysing the Deep State).

As for the influence of the Clintons, expect that to rapidly fade with HRC’s defeat. The power and the money depended on Hillary’s likely ascendancy to the Presidency and the possibility of Chelsea following in the manner of George W Bush. Unfortunately, the influence of the Bush family seems to have more secure foundations built over generations of service to the CIA.

At risk of sounding like Trump’s (s)trumpet, may I submit an alternative way of viewing Trump’s address to the CIA?

He possibly addressed the rank-and-file employees, many if not most of whom might be opposed to arming and assisting ISIS in any way and also opposed to regime change in Syria and other countries generally. He may have done this to secure their loyalty and support in the event of an impeachment charge or a coup being planned by their bosses or a secret group within the CIA. He may have done this also to get rank-and-file support to clean up and reform the CIA, and change it into something entirely different from what it has been for the past 70 or so years.

If Larry Chin’s article had any references to the speech Trump made, if he had linked to a video of the speech or any information from anyone who attended the speech or knew someone who did – after all, he did include part of Trump’s speech in the article – I might be more inclined to believe what he says about the speech. But Chin does not provide us with any supporting references that we can look up so we are expected to accept his say-so.

At risk of sounding like I don’t know what I’m talking about Jen..may I suggest another alternative to Trumps’ address to the CIA. …Trump has been informed of his agenda and like a good little boy he is following orders.

@Jen: From reading your comments you seem like a well informed and reasonable person – which is maybe why you don’t get the CIA – they are not reasonable people. They are either fully onboard with the national security agenda, or they are not in the CIA. A CIA analyst who thinks Assad should stay – is (soon to be) ex-CIA – or if they go public – dead CIA. Can I suggest Douglas Valentine’s “The CIA as Organized Crime” for the lowdown?
As for the current analysis, Larry Chin merely uses Trump’s speech rhetorically as an introductory device that leads into his own analysis. As such, he is not really referencing the speech but pointing out Trump’s dilemma – if he doesn’t tackle the CIA, he can’t effectively tackle ISIS and ‘win’ the War on Terror.
IMHO, Mr Shin nails it.

The CIA employs something like 21,500+ people and its organisation must be hierarchical and bureaucratic to hold so many people together. Not all of them are spooks; I used to know a university lecturer who was once employed by the CIA back in the 1960s – 70s as a researcher. (He was of a personality type that couldn’t hurt a fly even if he wanted to.) He was of Polish background and knew no German, so he was shoved into the research area where he had to read East German newspapers and magazines and listen to East German radio. One of his research colleagues knew German so he was put to work in the Bulgarian section. Go figure.

You would be looking at a very complex organisation the size of a small city made up of factions who don’t necessarily agree or cooperate with each other, and who might even be in conflict over particular issues. The rank-and-file employees may not be fully on board with what middle level and upper level managers and consultants at the CIA think.

If Chin is using Trump’s speech as a rhetorical device to spout his own analytical rubbish, that’s as much propaganda as anything vomited up by the MSM.

The CIA doesn’t assassinate a leader and overthrow their government only when the rank-and-file, the middle and upper level managers form a democratic consensus with the consultants! The rank, middle and upper don’t know what the other is up to, by carefully constructed hierarchical access to data – as I’ve laid out above in reply to @michaelk.

Superb analysis by Larry Chin, a man after my own heart.
So Trump descended through Dante’s Nine Levels of Hell to meet the traitors against God, country and family – and judging by his response – he doesn’t have a clue how to deal with them. So he put Steve Bannon in charge of strategy and intelligence. No, really, he did.
Subject to approval, with a permanent seat on the National Security Council, Bannon is arguably the most powerful man in the land – above the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the CIA and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. If this was Tudor England, he would be the Groom of the Stool, the man who got erm, closest to the King, and was ‘privy’ to the most sensitive of state secrets. Despite its drawbacks, it was the most trusted and sought after role in the land.
Trump clearly doesn’t do history. If he did he would know that the last time both the Director of the CIA and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were sidelined (fired actually) they were Allen Dulles and Lyman Lemnitzer.
The President was JFK. Is history repeating?

Thank you Larry, thankyou Offguard…I’ve seen it in the childrens’ chalklines on the pavement: Where will it “end ?”..(spoiler alert).. will it be the battle of Ishmael and Isaacs ? where everybody lives happily ever after on the last page of the bible? Or possibly in the numinous? … the thing they appropriated but are too clever to believe:

. ….CASSANDRAS’ CRUSADE…
ISHMAEL was inscribed
untried but enshrined
guilt proven by depositions’ nexus:
LEFT floating on gold
that so I am told
is worth more than the tea that’s in Texas:
SO General Namesake and G.I. Joe franks
were posted up close to the border
to confirm their subordinance
and consume lots of ordnance
for to recognize numinous
is to tall an order:
THEN from north of the west
came a guiding white light
a blazing red-stripe and blue starship
that lost shepherds and sheep
from a rogue lone shark state
couldn’t link with a just strike
or a pre-emptive slaughter…

“…’twern’t no one thing pertikuler
ya’ll best just stick ta the kurrikular
an’ don’ask no dumbass Israeli
ast’norts prescient daughter:”

“and the whole ship blew up!” she said. The assembly did a short double-take..then daddy, Ilan Ramon ( nee Wolferman ) said, “no darling, that’s only on television”…and they all laughed!…REMEMBER?

The plan is to strip the CIA of its covert capabilities and turn them over to the army. Trump in fact has strong support from the army because the army is quite tired of cleaning up the messes created by the CIA.

In this regard, Trump is in a better position than Kennedy because Kennedy didn’t have the support of the army. Times have changed.

I hope you’re right. The idea that there is a rivalry between the Pentagon and the CIA has occurred to me too. Flynn and Mattis are among the few people in DC who have made some sensible statements on Syria in recent years, so I hope this is an indication that they are against ‘régime change’.

This is a good article, but I have to disagree with some of the terms used and the overall tone of it which smacks of right-wing conspiracism. For one thing, “deep state” is redundant – there is nothing mystical or hidden about it; it’s just the unelected officials and institutions like the military and intelligence services that have always been mostly in control of the government. There are no global, supranational elites – the US ruling class has not quite succeeded in taking over the world just yet. And if you want to look for conspiracies, maybe start with religion which is probably the greatest scam ever pulled on the human race.

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